Saturday, June 30, 2012

Today, mom and I took a pre-birthday outing to some stops along Junkin in June. The first place we went to was very disappointing, it was in Boone, so while we were there, we stopped an an antique mall where I picked up these:

6 vintage needle packets, a button
After that we drove around a little lost looking for 2 more stops at one I picked up these:

a What Cheer, IA graduation program, 2 cute cards, and some cute flower magnets, the bag in the corner was a freebie with purchase.
The next items are from our last stop:

I couldn't pass up the festive cupcake, cookie, the thing at the top is a Victorian string holder, I don't use string, but I thought it was really neat, necklace I've been eyeing for awhile it was 20% off today, so I finally picked it up
This last set is from our 3rd stop of the day:

A cute sheep pillow, and a blue Ball canning jar

It wasn't near as neat as I thought it would be. We were originally going to go yesterday afternoon, and I think that would have helped, things seemed really picked over, but given it was the 2nd day and later in the afternoon, I guess it's expected. I did get some cool stuff, the string holder made my day. Anyone got any ideas with what I could do with it, other than hold string?

Two days left til my birthday. I have no plans for tomorrow, I may end up mowing the lawn. I am planning to take a cake to work on Monday, so I'll have to bake that. Monday, I'm going to dinner with friends.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

No exciting finds at garage sales this week, so please enjoy these nice pictures while I ramble.

I had 3 garage sales I planned to go to today. Two were busts, and I realized the third one was east, not west of my house, by the time I finished with the second one, I was almost at Hobby Lobby which I had to go to, to pick up some items for a few swaps I joined, so I skipped the other one.

My birthday is in a little over a week, I proposed that mom and I go to Junkin' in June, a little jaunt around central Iowa antique stores the weekend before, she's still not set on the idea. I bought myself some cute plastic necklaces to wear to work, and I'm thinking (no guarantee), I might bake something for my coworkers.

Speaking of swaps, I have joined 3 so far, I'm so excited. One is A Very Unmerry Birthday Cake Swap hosted by Tabitha at Creative Wings, I get to "make" a birthday cake, or decorate a round box like a birthday cake, and fill it with goodies for my partner. The second one is Summer Essentials hosted by Nicole at Flip Flops and Combat Boots, I was in this one last year, we swap what we feel are summer essentials with a partner. The third is a Hatbox swap hosted by Michelle at Something Special, we decorate a hat box and fill it for a partner.
I tried to sign up for a FRIENDS swap, but somehow my email got lost. After reading people had gotten their partners emailed to them, I left a comment asking if the hostess had gotten my original email, she said she hadn't so I re-sent it and I haven't heard anything back.
It's weird, Michelle said she didn't receive my email about her swap either, I'm starting to think my emails really don't go through when I use my kindle, though they show up as sent in my hotmail account. Who knows?

In other news, I'm finally getting my Zune to my preferences. I'm having a hard time getting stuff deleted off of it that I don't want. I'm running into a message that pops up frequently when I play songs on it, something about the usage rights being expired and that I need to snyc it to my PC, only problem is, when I hook it up to my PC, I can't tell which songs I don't really have because of that. I'm learning, I need to go through playing each song that's not mine and writing down which ones I have to delete, it's a long process.

I have this whole weekend off, I'm so excited, today's my first day off since the 10th. I won't be doing anything different, but it's so nice to have a break from working every day.

They finally announced the temporary location for the library the other day. I work at the library in my town, last fall the voters voted to get a new library. We're building on the current site, so we have to move out in October for about 2 years while we're building, it's so nice not to have to keep it a secret. I've known for about a month what our #1 possibility was, and it's so nice to know mostly for sure. There's still some stuff that if the current owner doesn't want to do, we do have a plan B, but I would love to move to the site. The best part is it's within walking distance, it's actually almost where my last job was.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

This week was totally a shopping week. On Tuesday, I checked out a local consignment store and got these 4 shirts for less than $25, not one of them was over $6.00

Wednesday, my friend and I had a fun shopping trip around Ames, first we went to Hobby Lobby and Jo-Anns, where I didn't buy a single thing. Then we went to the Dollar Tree (they just opened last week), where I bought a Father's Day card, some stickers, and some flowers. Then we headed to Target where I bought Pacific Blue 1st Season (I used to watch this show on USA when I was in high school about 10 years ago), a water bottle (I thought maybe I should buy one instead of reusing all the ones I have at home, I keep losing them anyway), some cute blue glasses, more stickers and a cute duck.
Friday, I hit some garage sales, this first one advertised lots of shells. I picked up:

a set of dominoes for artwork, a slice of coral, a shell, and 20 kids books. At the library, they don't have a budget for the prize books for the kids reading program, they're usually taken from donations.
This next sale had posted on craigslist with the listing of "buttons, notions, and thread", I thought it would be a great sale. It was a lot smaller than I expected and most things were kinda new, I did find these buttons though:

Next is a church sale that's about right across from the library, I have to work today at 10, so I originally planned to go in the morning before work, but I decided not to push it and went last night. I found:

a cute bunny, an owl S&P set, some bouncy headed eggs and a fish, they were found in Montag's box below

These cute porcelain pieces. They must be some kind of set, the smaller ones say Wade Eng, the dog and the fish say Wade England, anyone know anything about these? The dog and the wolf were in the bag with them

a bundle of fresh lavender, the rest of the items here were found in the box below

I just love this box, I think it would fun to semi-alter, I'd love to keep the gold detail. It says Montag's on the front and Montag's vanity no. 300-266 white 36 sheets 15 notes 45 envelopes rag content deckled and bordered. Obviously there was a note set in it, I would have loved to see those.

I saw this set of Campbell's soup cups and thought they were old, and figured I'd give them to my aunt who collects Campbell's stuff, but when I looked closer it says they're from 2000, oh well, they're a perfect size

Friday, June 08, 2012

I made my day earlier. I had a $25 credit on Amazon, and Mark Wahlberg's my guy, so I bought Contraband,

but then I was under the $25 super saver shipping price, so I bought Whiteout

and The Rock. If the rest of the day went bad, it was ok. Can't wait til I get those in the mail.

And then later I went to a few garage sales. Bargain Hunter asked if we had any places we made sure we went to every year. I have a tendency to forget the address, but once I get there, I remember. The last one I went to today, I'm actually related to the lady that put it on, plus she has some great baked goods.

I got a rhubarb pie, a cinnamon roll, a bag of trimand a pig for a friend.

The quilt is from the first sale I went to, it's a little faded, the toys in the corner were from the last sale, little jack-o-lantern.

Not a grand day for sales, but I have to work from 8 to 1 tomorrow, so I won't be going to any, plus I got my guy coming in the mail for me.

Thursday, June 07, 2012

Sorry, no pretty pictures today, but shortly after taking the link down the other day, I found out my link to my Decorah pictures worked, so go here for some neat pictures.

I want to shout out to my friend Goddess, who commented on some of my posts today. Thanks, sometimes I wonder if anyone reads this, I never get comments.

I must remember to write down all the ideas I get to write on my blog, once I actually sit down to write it, they all disappear. Most of the time I think about them when I'm on my Kindle, which won't let me post through blogger on it, i've never figured it out, but since I can't upload photos there either, I need to get on the desktop sometime.

I'm loving my new schedule at library (well most of it). I told my boss I preferred working in the mornings, so every day of the week she has me in at 8AM. On Wednesdays, I work 8 hours (I'm not complaining), sometimes I'm so tired of dealing with the public when I get done. Or the other day, there was something that shouldn't have happened and it took me 1.5+ hours to fix it, and it's still not completely fixed. I really need to learn how to leave work at work, my stress level gets so high some days.

I'm losing my faith in guys. We all know why I'm not happy with my ex (for one, he's my ex), but I am on okcupid (cause it's free), anyways you can message people on there. Shortly after I changed my status, and updated my profile, this one guy was messaging me, and we were talking through Yahoo Messenger, until he asked me to text him. I didn't want to, because I didn't want him to have my cell #, he decided he wouldn't chat with me anymore. Within the last month I've been chatting with this other guy, a week went by without us chatting, because I didn't have anything to say or I was busy, or something, so he messages me asking why I stopped sending messages. Apparently, no one told him, he could send me messages without me starting the thread. And he's doing it again, why do I always have to come up with something to say?

I have been craving cherry coke something fierce lately. I don't know why, a friend bought me a 20oz last friday, and I bought another one on Sunday, but I'm still craving it. And donuts, I always seem to be craving donuts.

A few weeks ago when I was mowing the lawn, I got attacked by the rose bush (no big surprise there), anyways, it was just a thorn in my finger, I pulled it out, and now I have a little scar there. Ever since, I can push on the scar and it hurts, I'm thinking not all of the thorn got out, but I don't want to go digging in my finger. Tonight (this is on my pinkie finger), the first knuckle has been cramping up when I bend it, it's getting really annoying. I'm hoping if I just ignore it, it will go away, it usually works. Otherwise, I may have to start digging in my finger, I really don't want to go to a doctor for it.

Monday, June 04, 2012

The other day, I posted about my recent trip to Decorah, IA, and put a link to my pictures from the trip. I realized that link leads you nowhere, I spent about an hour today trying to figure out why. It seems my name "WW" was not a correct name for Google's policy, so they suspended my account until I had a correct name. I changed it to my real name today, so hopefully it will be back up soon. I took down my post, and will put it up again without the link. So, for now, here's a few pictures (mostly of the really cool rock wall):

In exactly 4 weeks from today it will be my 29th birthday, or as my cousin would say "my 1st 29th birthday". I have no idea what I'm doing, but as every year, I'm giddy about it, I'm guessing it won't be as exciting as I hope it will. Anyone have any thought as to what I should do on here for it? The last couple of years, I've done a giveaway. Last year, I had two entries, so I sent something to both of them.

I haven't made anything artsy in a long time. I'm so metally exhausted after working at my job in the mornings, that all I want to do is lie on the couch and fall asleep in front of a movie. I am a bit bothered about only working 4-5 hours each day and then having to have a nap because I'm so tired, but I don't really have money to look into why this happens. One of my ideas is that I'm eating way too much processed foods, I haven't made myself food (other than throwing something in the microwave) in well over a month.

Saturday, all my electronics decided to revolt against me. I went garage saleing, and as I usually do, I took my mp3 player with me. The last sale I went to, was half a block from my house, so after pausing my music to stop at the sale, I didn't try to play it again until I got home. It hasn't turned back on since. Now, music keeps me sane, if I can't listen to music, it's not a good thing. In March, my brother gave me his Microsoft Zune. He informed me, he hadn't plugged it in for a long time. I plugged it in a couple weeks later and it didn't respond, so I tossed it in a drawer and forgot about it, until Saturday. After my Gigabeat (which is probably about 6 years old, and another hand-me-down from my brother) died, I plugged it in again, and proceeded to ignore it.

I pulled out my original gigabeat to see if I could do anything with that. This one I got when I graduated college in December of 2006, and then froze it a couple years later while shoveling snow (I learned then, that I don't get music for that chore). It hasn't kept a battery charge since, and it still doesn't. When I was getting extremely upset, I looked at the Zune and saw that it was charging (apparently it needs 30 minutes to wake up after a prolonged sleep), I learned it takes about 3 hours to charge. I started to download the software and everytime I got so far, my computer told me it needed to restart to complete updates. I finally got smart, and saved it to my computer and then ran it. It took me 3+ hours to download, install, and get all my music onto the Zune. Fast forward to that night, I was trying to use it and it died again. I plugged it into the wall for the night. After all that fun stuff, I wanted to complain on Facebook, which told me it couldn't update my status.

Sunday morning I woke up refreshed and in a much better mood.
I would really love to do a swap of some kind, anyone wanna do a swap? Could be art, or even swapping stuff, I'm totally game. I miss swaps.

My mother has signed us up to be on a garden tour in July, the other day she said it was too much work for her, and that I needed to help. It's coming along great, rest assured you guys will get to enjoy the garden tour as well.

So, anyone know anything about rocks? Can anyone tell me anything about these? I know very little about rocks, not much more than I know what I like to look at.

And this picture is just really cool. I love this one, I think it would be a great postcard.

Sunday, June 03, 2012

I feel like I haven't found any good sales this year, my mother suggested I needed to take a break (that's never gonna happen). This weekend, I found a great sale.

I had four sales on my list yesterday, the first one was at a house I had been to in the past, I found a cute blue scarf (I use them to decorate my shelf spaces), a square pyrex refrigerator dish, and a cute doily. I'm thinking about decopaging the refrigerator dish with dictionary pages, but that may change, I currently have the garland from below in it, and it looks really cute, only I don't have a place for it.
The second sale, one of the guys kept looking at me creepily, I'm so glad I didn't go Friday night like I planned to. I didn't buy anything at that sale.

The third sale, was my sale of the day. I found this cute puppy planter, this really cool tree stump guy, I really liked this guy.

This garland is in my refrigerator dish, birds, two bottles were in a bag together, and some figures

I also got this bag of toys, I thought maybe I could use they tiny lizards in artwork.
My last sale, mostly nothing was priced, but I still got a steal. Shell owl, clear sundae cup, green sundae cup, tiny elephant cup, I thought it was a great deal. I love sundae cups, I actually already have the same green one, so now I have a set. I think it would be cool to have a party and serve people ice cream in my sundae cups and/or my tea cups, especially since none (or very few) of them match. The tiny cup has an elephant on it.

Saturday, June 02, 2012

Last weekend, my family went to Decorah, IA. Since we were going east anyway, I suggested we go to Barb's Memorial Day sale, that was really cool, I got to see Sally and Jethro, and the Rabbit Hole and so many other cool things there. We got to my grandma's house Saturday night, and continued north on Sunday morning. Before getting to Decorah, we visited the World's Smallest Church:

It only seats 8 people. It was pretty cool, there were some beautiful stained glass windows inside and a small graveyard in the back
Once we got to Decorah, we had some time to kill before we checked into the hotel, so we had a nice lunch at a Norwegian restaurant where my dad had to order some luefsa, that was interesting. We walked up and down the main street, and then went to see the 200 foot waterfall at Dunning's Spring Park:

That little kid in the red, walked down the whole thing, I kept waiting for him to slip and slide down, but he never did, thankfully. Mom and I walked up to the top of the waterfall (on steps), that was a neat view down.
And the Fish Hatchery:

Not really an exciting place, but I love how a bunch of the adults were showing their childern to "pet" the fish, even though there was a sign, saying "Please don't touch the fish", way to set a good example, parents.
And the giant eagle's nest at the Fish Hatchery:

That would have been more interesting if we could see the eagles, you can see one of the adults in my picture. The nest was about 80 feet up in the air, this was as zoomed in as my camera went, I'm surprised I actually found it in my camera, that was tough.
By this time, it was time to check in and figure out supper, we went to a local hang-out called T-Bocks, I had a mushroom burger and a root beer, we also got to enjoy some local music.
We also wandered through historic downtown Decorah, where we found a very cool rock fence, I took 119 pictures of it:

I love rocks, I could have spent all night looking at this fence/wall, very cool.
And this neat park:

The park, we just happened upon, it was really neat, as I had seen a photo from early 1900's with this walkway in it, and said I wanted to see it. The right half of the picture looks out over a river, I have some great pictures of that. By the time we had walked around the park, we were ready to go back to the hotel.
The next morning we had a very sad breakfast at the hotel and headed out early to see The Seed Saver's Exchange:

It wasn't as cool as I thought it was, there were mostly two gardens, one with veggies, the other with flowers, I was hoping for more gardens. I did buy some nice postcards and stickers.
Next we headed to Fort Atkinson:

this was an old fort to keep two Indian tribes from harming each other, it was mostly ruins, and because it was Memorial Day, the museum in the old barracks wasn't open.
The next stop was about 40 minutes out, we picked up a lunch of fried chicken close to it, and headed down the road to the Motor Mill

This mill is on the Turkey River, it never really picked up in business and finally closed. It's called the Motor Mill because the guy who built it was trying to build a town around it called Motor. In the 90's, half of the bridge was washed out in a flood, and then in 2008, another flood washed out the other half.
Supper that night was at Albert's in the historic Winnieshiek Hotel, that was too much. I had grilled rosemary shrimp, which came with soup, and rolls. I had seen the dessert plate before we started eating, so I ordered dessert too, we all went to bed very full.
I thought Albert's was a little upper scale, but as we were waiting for our food, I found out it wasn't. There was a lady who decided she couldn't eat with her shoes on, and I have to say staring at someone's feet does not help my appetite.
Tuesday, we checked out a few shops in downtown Decorah, and then headed home.